“I fucking hate rats!” Muradin muttered, blood dripping down his face.

  He raised his shield and dug in, boots scraping stone as he braced against the King Kobold’s charge. Grobold enforcers swarmed him from both sides, claws slashing into his defenses.

  His role was simple. Hold the line, take the punishment, and make damn sure none of them slipped past him.

  I focused on keeping everyone alive, steadily building Wind Cutter stacks as I went. Mana flowed through the scepter while I layered buffs onto Muradin, thickening his defenses just enough for him to endure the storm.

  Every time Galestride came off cooldown, I redirected it to Darwyn, sharpening his movements, quickening his draw.

  Darwyn didn’t miss a beat. He activated Piercing Arrow, shots snapping toward the Black Kobolds darting through the shadows. Fast. Annoyingly fast. But his relentless pressure kept them pinned, forced to react instead of strike.

  [Quick Enhance cast]

  The flask in Orin’s hand began to glow, its contents churning with unstable brilliance. She tensed, waiting.

  “Over there,” Elena said sharply, pointing at a stretch of ground.

  The earth didn't just crack; it heaved. Kobold Diggers, their claws tipped with serrated obsidian, burst through the floor like breaching sharks.

  Orin hurled the Enhanced Electroflask.

  It detonated the instant it struck, releasing pulsing waves of electricity that rippled outward, far wider than a standard Electroflask. The shock drilled deep into the earth.

  Kobold Diggers burst from below, shrieking as electricity tore through their bodies. Some collapsed before fully emerging, limbs spasming as their nerves betrayed them.

  Orin and Elena exchanged a glance, then broke into matching grins.

  Movement flickered at the edge of my vision.

  “Elena, watch out!”

  I snapped Tempest Shield into place around her just as a Kobold Digger erupted from the ground, claws deflected into the air instead of her chest.

  Elena staggered back, knees locked as she stared at the slashing talons hovering inches from her face.

  Light flashed.

  Lightning ripped through the creature, dropping it in a twitching heap before it could retreat.

  “Orin, cover her!” Darwyn barked.

  Elena collapsed to the ground, hands trembling so badly she had to clutch her bow to keep it from rattling.

  “A little help here!” Muradin roared.

  He was barely holding on. The King Kobold and its Grobold enforcers crashed into Muradin’s shield. Hulking, gray-skinned brutes with shoulders as wide as stone slabs, they pinned him in place by sheer mass.

  I felt the Mana click, a jagged puzzle piece finally sliding into place.

  A howling gust exploded outward as Tornado Slash erupted, a spiraling storm of razor-sharp wind ripping through the enemy ranks. King Kobold reeled, its guards thrown back screaming as blades carved into flesh. Muradin seized the opening, stumbling clear long enough to down a healing potion.

  Orin moved instantly.

  Flameburst flared to life in her hand, the flask glowing an ominous blue.

  She threw.

  Fire spread across the battlefield, flames twisting violently as Tornado Slash fanned them into a roaring inferno. The heat was intense, the blue blaze burning hotter than anything natural. King Kobold roared, massive frame writhing as fire and wind tore into it.

  We called the combo Firestorm.

  The flames lingered, chaos spreading through the enemy ranks.

  For the first time since the fight began, my chest loosened enough to drag in a full breath.

  Elena steadied herself. Muradin reset his stance, shield raised once more.

  Then everything went wrong.

  Choking fog swallowed the chamber.

  The fog wasn't natural, it was the breath of the Black Kobolds. They were spindly, soot-colored shadows that didn't run. They glided through the haze, their poisoned daggers flickering like snake tongues.

  “Damn it, I can’t see!” Darwyn cursed, loosing an arrow blind.

  Too late.

  A Black Kobold slipped through the haze with eerie precision. Poisoned steel flashed.

  “Darwyn—!”

  The poisoned steel bit deep into his flank.

  Darwyn gasped, not in pain at first, but in surprise, like his body hadn’t caught up yet. Then his legs gave out.

  “Elena!” Orin shouted.

  Already moving, Elena loosed a single arrow.

  Thwip.

  It punched straight through the Black Kobold’s eye. The creature collapsed without a sound.

  Orin was at Darwyn’s side instantly, hands steady as she poured a potion. “Hold still.”

  I stepped forward—

  Something slammed into my head.

  The world snapped sideways.

  Sound vanished, replaced by a high, shrill ringing that burrowed straight into my skull. The floor felt wrong: too far away, too close, impossible to judge.

  Get up.

  My body didn’t listen.

  My first clear thought wasn’t the pain.

  They don’t have a healer.

  The ringing thinned. Noise bled back in: shouting, steel, something heavy crashing stone. Light smeared across my vision like wet paint.

  Then it focused.

  Orin. Bloodied.

  A Grobold had broken past Muradin, charging the backline.

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  I tried to move. My limbs lagged, like wading through tar.

  “Not today, bastard!”

  Lightning arced.

  Darwyn, pale and swaying, forced himself upright. I’m fine, his posture said, but his face said otherwise, as he fired a Lightning Bolt that locked the Grobold in place mid-strike.

  "Elena!"

  "On it."

  Another arrow. Another kill.

  Time dragged on, and we were still standing.

  Barely.

  “Again! Don’t let them breathe!” Muradin shouted.

  Wind surged once more.

  The storm tore through the remaining Kobold Minions, blades of air carving them apart.

  “Make it count, Orin!” I called.

  Orin’s grin was gone. “I’m ending this,” she said, voice tight, and hurled the glowing Flameburst Flask straight into the vortex. The glass shattered mid-spin, and then the storm ignited.

  Fire and wind merged into a raging spiral, a living inferno that consumed everything in its path.

  “That’s right,” Orin yelled over the roar. “Burn, you filthy mutts!”

  Screeches echoed, then faded into silence.

  “Last one’s mine,” Darwyn said calmly.

  Light flared from his bow. The shot streaked across the chamber and punched through the final Grobold’s skull. It dropped without a sound.

  Then the ground trembled.

  “What now?” Orin began.

  A deep, guttural growl rolled up from below.

  The ground shuddered. Hairline fractures spiderwebbed outward as dust fell from the ceiling.

  “Get back!” I shouted, yanking Orin away from the center.

  Muradin planted his feet, tightening his grip on his warhammer. “Here we go again…”

  Darwyn scanned the widening cracks. “That didn’t come from above.”

  “No,” Elena whispered. “It came from below.”

  “Positions!” I barked. “This is where it gets real.”

  Muradin grinned, blood running down the edge of his shield. “Aye. Time to dance with death.”

  The second phase had begun.

  ***

  With all its minions destroyed, King Kobold let out a guttural snarl and plunged into the ground. Its massive claws tore through stone like loose soil, leaving behind a yawning hole before its bulk vanished beneath the surface.

  “It’s gone under!” Elena hissed. “I hate when it does that.”

  We closed ranks immediately, backs nearly touching, weapons raised. Breath came heavy.

  “Hold steady,” I said.

  A breath.

  “Darwyn.”

  Unlike the Kobold Diggers, this thing didn’t strike blindly. It hunted.

  The stone beneath our boots whispered with faint tremors, subtle and wrong. Cracks crept outward, spiderwebbing across the battlefield.

  Darwyn’s eyes tracked them all.

  “Muradin,” he snapped. “Three o’clock. Wall.”

  Muradin pivoted without hesitation. “I see it.”

  King Kobold burst from the sidewall in a blur, claws extended like twin scythes.

  CLANG!

  Muradin barely caught the blow on his shield. The impact hurled him backward, boots carving sparks as he skidded across fractured stone.

  “NOW!” Darwyn shouted.

  Muradin surged forward, his shield smashing into the creature’s skull. Storm Bolt followed instantly, locking the monster in place.

  We unleashed everything.

  Wind screamed. Lightning cracked. Arrows tore through the air. Magic and steel converged in a brutal instant, scorching fur and ripping deep into flesh.

  King Kobold howled…

  And vanished again.

  Stone shattered overhead.

  “Above!” Elena screamed.

  Muradin barely had time to brace before another crushing impact drove him to one knee. His shield shrieked under the strain. His arm shook violently.

  “I can take this all day, you overgrown rat,” he spat, blood streaking from his lip.

  The pattern set in, and it was killing us.

  Darwyn called the strikes by instinct and experience alone.

  Muradin took the hits, every one heavier than the last.

  We countered in flashes of violence, never long enough to finish it.

  Each exchange chipped away at us.

  Muradin’s steps slowed. His breathing turned ragged, every inhale forced.

  “Hold… on…” he muttered after the last clash, staggering back as his shield arm trembled uncontrollably.

  “Muradin, fall back,” I urged. The words came slower than they should have. My thoughts were lagging.

  “Not… yet,” he growled. “I drop, we all drop.”

  The battlefield itself was failing.

  Holes yawned where solid stone had been. Fractures split beneath our feet, the floor groaning with every movement. One misstep would send any of us plunging into darkness.

  But King Kobold was faltering too.

  It limped now, one leg dragging. Silver-streaked fur was scorched black, clotted with blood. When it erupted from stone, its timing was off. Claws were missing by inches instead of finding flesh.

  “It’s slowing,” Orin panted, wiping soot from her cheek.

  “We’re getting through,” Darwyn confirmed, nocking another arrow. His voice was steady, but sweat ran freely down his temple. “How much longer, Erynd?”

  I tightened my grip on my scepter, forcing my focus back into alignment. The rhythm was there. Ragged. Unstable.

  I could still follow it.

  “Phase Three,” I said. My grip tightened on the scepter.

  “Minutes. Maybe less.”

  Elena swallowed. “That’s the bad one.”

  The ground answered for me.

  A violent tremor rippled outward, stronger than before. The stone beneath us screamed as something vast shifted below.

  Darwyn didn’t look away from the shifting floor. His voice was cold, precise.

  “Then we finish this fast,” he said. “And don’t die.”

  Minutes passed.

  The air grew heavier, charged with an ominous pressure that crawled across my skin.

  The entire chamber lurched.

  Stone screamed as cracks tore across the floor, racing outward in jagged lines. The King Kobold was nowhere in sight.

  “Shoot!” I barely had time to curse before the floor collapsed beneath us, and we were plunging into darkness.

  The chasm swallowed us whole.

  Wind roared past my ears as we fell, the void stretching far deeper than it had ever looked from above. No bottom in sight, only endless black rushing up to meet us.

  Through the abyss, Darwyn’s voice rang out.

  “Fifteen!

  Fourteen!

  Thirteen!”

  “Three… Two… One.”

  We reached into our inventories, pulling free the one item that mattered.

  “Now!”

  [Featherfall Tonic used]

  Cool magic flooded my veins as I swallowed the potion. The lethal pull vanished instantly, my descent slowing to a controlled drift. Without it, we’d have been dead on arrival.

  Our boots touched down in shallow water, the impact gentle but eerie. Ice-cold liquid soaked my greaves, creeping up to my ankles. Darkness pressed in from every side, suffocating and absolute.

  “Darwyn?” I called.

  [Illumne cast]

  A glow flared to life, illuminating the chamber. It was circular, the jagged walls riddled with shallow alcoves, natural pockets of shadow.

  We moved immediately, splitting into position without a word.

  “Everyone stay low,” Darwyn whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe unless I say so.”

  Something massive crashed into the chamber.

  The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the water, sloshing violently against the stone.

  King Kobold had arrived.

  Dim, unnatural light pulsed from crystals embedded in the walls, casting warped shadows across the chamber. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

  We were hidden.

  The monster straightened, its massive tail rising slowly, energy crackling along its length.

  The tail slammed down, shattering stone. Water leapt from the ground as debris rained from above, vibrations tearing through the floor and into my bones.

  The King Kobold roared and spun.

  Its tail swept through the chamber in a devastating arc, tearing through stone and air alike. The sheer force of the wind rattled my ribs.

  “One hit,” I whispered, gripping my scepter. “One hit, and we’re done.”

  We didn’t move.

  We waited.

  Stone broke. Water churned. Time stretched until seconds felt like hours.

  Then… silence.

  The pattern was clear. A brutal barrage… a brief pause… then another sweep. Only seconds to act before we had to vanish again.

  “Light him up!” I shouted.

  In those narrow windows, we struck. Arrows punched into the creature’s skull. Magic flared, struck, and vanished.

  The tail twitched, rising again.

  “Fall back!” Darwyn barked.

  We dove into the shadows.

  Again.

  The next impact was different.

  The tail came down directly onto Muradin’s position, smashing into the stone with a thunderous crash.

  “Mister Bromir!!” Orin screamed.

  Dust and debris swallowed the chamber as the King Kobold snarled, slamming the ground in fury.

  As the dust settled, I saw him.

  Muradin stood in a shallow crater, shield braced at an angle, its rim buried deep in fractured stone. The metal was bent, split, nearly folded in on itself.

  My heart hammered painfully in my chest.

  “That was too close,” I murmured.

  There was no time to recover.

  We surged forward.